POLICE BRUTALLY ATTACK SAMBURU TRIBE
Over the past several weeks, Kenyan government forces launched a series of ongoing assaults on the indigenous Samburu people in the remote northern region of the country, using helicopter gunships and armed ground forces to attack several villages. The police, claiming to be after cattle bandits, strafed unarmed villagers from the air and used clubs to beat villagers on the ground. The attacks have so far displaced more than 2,000 Samburu, a cattle-herding people closely related to the Maasai, and government forces confiscated all the communities’ cattle, leaving them with no food source.
Residents of Archer’s Post watch helplessly as cattle are driven through the shopping centre
According to Raphael Letimelo, Member of Parliament for the Samburu district, the assaults are not finished yet. “There have been reports and threats of possible mass executions and removal from of indigenous people from their traditional homelands throughout the Samburu District in the next few weeks,” he said. On March 5, unidentified assailants in Nairobi executed two prominent Kenyan human rights activists who planned to publicize the situation in Samburu District.
Woman breaking into tears after loosing all her cattle to security forces
A widespread famine has now emerged in eastern Samburu due to the loss of thousands of cattle during these violent attacks, which occurred during a severe drought, which was further complicated by a nationwide maize shortage, the result of the illegal sale of the country’s maize supply. A cholera epidemic has now surfaced in the Kipsing and Lerata communities and many survivors of the massacre have untreated life-threatening injuries from gunshot wounds, shrapnel, burns, dehydration, and other injuries. Hundreds of people have died from secondary causes in addition to those who were killed during the police raids. These numbers are expected to rise as volunteers locate the dead and injured who fled the attacks and as people weaken as the famine takes hold. Many elders, whose lives focused around their cattle, are expressing deep grief and are suicidal. The most vulnerable (orphans, widows, elderly, disabled) are, of course suffering, most, but there is widespread fear, shock and hopelessness throughout the community.
Kenyan Police Forces Fire at Community
While this region has always been impacted by drought, some experts believe that climate change has increased their frequency, severity, and duration. The Samburu, who were once nomadic and moved with rains, have been forced by their government to live on group ranches without alternative resources for surviving these harsh conditions. We are working to respond quickly to this crisis by providing emergency response provisions such as food, water, medical supplies and other critical services to people in the most remote locations of northern Kenya, where foreign aid relief supplies are unavailable. We have established teams to search for displaced persons who fled the massacre and are now living in caves in mountains, and these teams are delivering supplies such as dry milk and other provisions by donkey and on foot. The Samburu people are in imminent danger of dying by starvation and of their injuries and need immediate assistance.
This is the brutality that the minorities has been facing ever since the adoption of the foreign governance structure in the name of government. It is a struggle that would continue and will only bear any tangible fruits if their is unity among the people concerned. This would enable us together to approach the outside world together, bringing to their attention these human rights abuses. Land is one of the major issues that has to be resolved if at all we would want to achieve our goal of peace. Keep the advocacy alive and the truth shall triumph.
It’s really inhuman, immoral and certainly not Kenyan that the legal system in Kenya cannot step up to combat criminality in Samburu and the adjacent arid and semi arid regions of Kenya. It’s logical that the culprits should be brought to book!
Moreover, it’s very awkward that such isolated criminal incidences conducted by individuals or organized gang’s causes whole ethnic groups like Samburu to be collectively punished. Kenya knows where the problem lies and the solutions to all those problems are well documented both by human rights, NGOs, CBOs and other development organizations working in the area. The parliamentarians from those areas were meant to represent the social-economic and political rights of the voters.
Did Obama say “And it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations, ”
It’s also very true that if the system doesn’t protect you, then you find ways to protect yourself. The Samburu people are not protected. Where are the Samburu leaders? Do they hear when their people cry? Do they deliver the daily emergency messenges from their suffering people? How can the Samburu people withstand this negligence?
While defending his comments on people clinging on guns in small towns, Obama said that “People feel like (Kenya) is not listening to them, and as a consequence, they find that they can only rely on the traditions and the things that have been important to them for generation after generation. Faith, Family, traditions like hunting and they get frustrated.” Cattle raid is still a phenomenon in those affected areas because the system has failed. Cattle raiding customary activity belongs to the Maasai’s of Narok and Kajiado too which is long gone and forgotten due to their exposure to better living standard and an alternative way of living. Unlike today, raids were conducted for customary values, nowadays the practice is for survival. Cattle raid is a secondary symptom of systematic injustice in sharing of resources in Kenya.
The people affected should be able to unite and demand that their parliamentarians brings forward a motion on how to provide and protect the social liberties of all Kenyans including the minorities from all corners of Kenya.
I teach Anthropology at Cambridge College. Tina Ramme, the lion researcher who lives part of the year with the Samburu and founded KARE, is a colleague. Since a couple days after the first Kenyan Police and Somali attacks on the Samburu, I’ve been helping her raise funds and awareness.
Tina just left on Monday (June 29th) to go back to Kenya. I received an e-mail this evening saying, in her words
“Arrived safely. Sadly, word of 10 deaths near Sera, a community 12 mile NE of Lerata, a few hours after landing, due to more illegal Somali and police action. No cattle involved….just ambushed the village unprovoked. More later. Tina”
I’ll try to everyone updated on this as Tina e-mails me.
Roxanne R-W
I am going to post here a string of e-mails from Tina in the Samburu District of Northern Kenya to me (Roxanne Reddington-Wilde, a fellow Cambridge College Professor of hers): several days each week she reports news of attacks happening there. I know how I feel as I read her e-mails, often just as I am going in to teach a class: anxious and agitated. I can’t imagine how she feels, hearing gunfire about her. Your reading of this comment makes me feel less helpless. More important, I am reporting back to the Samburu people and Tina: your reading this makes them no longer feel invisible.
I just received this e-mail (7/17). I presume it was sent Friday 7/18 or perhaps today (it wasn’t Tina’s normal e-mail address and the dating function was off (4/15/09 it said) :
“Fighting has broken out in Isiolo, according to a Kenya army leutenant who just phoned me from there moments ago, with the Borana – Somali attacking and shooting innocent Turkana and Samburu people who were trading in the city. There is chaos right now (I could hear the gunfire and screaming in the background). It is uncertain how many are dead and injured, but I will keep you informed as I learn more throughout the afternoon.
Tina”
Tina headlined this e-mail: “Monday, July 12th Attack”
”
Hi,
Apologies for late report. I could not charge my phone on my solar device for some reason, in spite of much sun, so it had to be walked over 20Km to be charged!
On Monday at approximately 6 PM, a group of Somali Borana raiders attacked a Turkana community in Ngara Mara, a small village between Archers Post and Isiolo, accusing the Turkana community of sympathizing with the Samburu tribe. They stole 450 cattle and kidnapped 2 children, again reminiscent of the first raid In February in which 300 cattle and 2 children were kidnapped (those children were later found dead with their throats slit.)
Tonight, according to county council officer Raphael Leilikei of Archer’s Post, the 2 young Turkana children, ages 8 and 9, were found murdered in a similar fashion, throats slit. The cattle have not been recovered and there has been no police response whatsoever, of course.
Will keep you updated. Right now we are trying to rescue someone injured on the mountain, Mt Ololokwe, possible green mamba, so must rush off. This is why we need phone service here- which we DID have at one time-or better radio equip.- to call Flying Doctors. We suspect the phone signal was deliberately dismantled as it deteriorated just weeks before the first attack and one of the only other actions taken by the police at that time was to remove all radio communication equipment from the conservancies so they could not warn people of the oncoming forces. I doubt he’ll make it if it is a mamba. Never quiet in Samburu!
Hope you are well,
Tina
And from Saturday, July 4th itself. While I was hearing kids happily setting off fireworks in the dark, Tina and others were hiding in a cave from attack. This was especially hard to read just before going into my Monday evening archaeology class (when I received it).
“When I get near a town, I will give you access to more photos (can you check to be sure I haven’t already?). I can’t do that from a BlackBerry in mountain caves. Another attack near here 50 minutes ago. No details yet but the Moran [the warrior "age group" of Samburu young men: Rox] are holding off the Borana-Somali, asked for back up and to notify the MP, DO, councilora, and others to assist, as of course the police are not available to assist. So this is the 2nd attack 10 days!
A few days before that:
“Sorry this sent out before I was done. That’s the problem with these tiny BlackBerry keyboards!
…Anyway, as far as this latest attack, which happened in the middle of the night on Monday, 5 are now dead including a young girl, and 8 more critically wounded. This happened about 43 miles NW of Lerata and while they slept. Over 1000 cattle were taken, which surprised me because I thought ALL had been taken. They may have been travelling through to or from a different region, though, as the severe drought has many people seeking grass and water for their cows across the entire country. I have no idea! It’s a remote area though.
That’s all for now!
Best wishes,
Tina”
And to think I used to disparage Blackberries! It’s the only think that is getting the news out from the Samburu district. Now I am on the hunt for a hand-crank Blackberry charger to try to get to her so she doesn’t just have to rely on the solar charger (on the other hand, with the drought going on in the district: Tina doesn’t have to worry about a lack of sun). The Samburu need so much more, however: they need food desparately and their cattle back or replaces. If you can donate, please do. The money is going directly to the Samburu themselves (any charger I find will be out of my own pocket for Tina).
Roxanne R-W
KARE
Sunday, July 19 (the day after I posted above the string of Tina’s E-mails from the Samburu District): Tina responded, grateful that I was able to get her e-mails up here on the Save Samburu blog, but she also sent me follow-up news on the kidnapped children and the police. Read them below in her own words… but I want, want good news! And the only way the news will become positive is by us exposing the human rights abuses, atrocities and power plays taking place in Kenya at this moment in time.
1st e-mail of Sunday [referring to the original, late February Somali cattle raid and kidnapping of two Samburu children that appears to have been pre-conceived so as to give the Kenyan police an excuse to move in on the Samburu, attack them and remove their cattle]:
“Great to hear you are able to post on the blog, albeit not perfectly yet.
Here is more news.
Here is the rest of the story about the 4 children who were kidnapped and murdered, throats slit (2 from Samburu tribe in Feb, 2 from Turkana tribe in Ngara Mara.
This finally was revealed to me as I pressed for more details tonight as I am being questioned by outsiders since I rem to be the only other insider besides the Samburu. They said they did not want to tell me ’such a bad story’ because I ‘would stay far from them’. I confirmed the story with 4 sources, including those who found the bodies and the Councilor who was with them, who will be meeting me here tomorrow in person with his evidence and to answer more question.
In both cases, EXACTLY the same events occurred. They are very bothered by this as it makes it feel more diabolical, carefully orchestrated, and to make a point.
When the murran [Moran: the young warriors of the tribe] went on foot following the tracks of the cattle to find their children and cows, they walked a full day and finally found the children a very long distance away . In the case of Ngara Mara, in addition to the murran, the Councilor from Ngara Mara and leaders also tracked with the murran- the police *refused* to go when asked. ( In the Samburu incident, a police officer from Archer’s Post searched for them with the murran and Kalama Conservancy officers.)
When the Turkana murran reached the Kalua area the children were found exactly as the other children had been found in Feb. : throats slit, HANGING FROM A TREE, SKINNED!!!
Some said ‘the skin was off’
One remarked ‘ I don’t know why they go like that from children, maybe they go market from skin’
(like a poached leopard skin??)
There are photos, but I will spare you.
The cattle tracks continued on as far as the Kacharu area but they were not recovered. While this team was gone searching, the Borana killed another person in Ngara Mara that same evening, a boy the age of a murran.
This team was angry and went to retaliate on Borana. The following day they went to a Borana boma and shot some of their cows.
Also:
At 7am on July 18th, 4 more Turkana were again shot dead by Borana and Somali gunmen in the marketplace in Isiolo.
No mention in the news that they were Somali *Borana attackers. They referred to them only as bandits, perhaps so people would assume the were Samburu gunmen, as that’s what they’ve been calling the Samburu in the press?
Tina
Sent from my BlackBerry®”
And in a later e-mail received today, now reporting on events since yesterday:
“3 lorries filled with police arrived tonight July 18 in Archer’s Post to reoccuppy the outpost. Area residents are not sure why, as the conflicts have taken in Isiolo and its surrounding areas, not in Archer’s Post.
However, the Isiolo shootings may have given them another window of opportunity – or public cover – to move into peaceful communities once again in the name of ’stabilizing the area’ and shoot, torture, and violate innocent citizens unrelated to the violence, as they did in Lerata in Feb.
Will let you know.
Tina
Sent from my BlackBerry®”
Atrocities such as this happen only in history books, I thought, when you read about the Holocaust or, as I have been doing for my class, when the Spaniards forcefully interrogated and then Christianized the New World. But, whether it be New Spain, Germany behind the doors of concentration camps or Rwanda, to bring it closer to now and alas to Africa, the intent is the same: to degradize, to render inhuman and so enforce a message of powerlessness and uselessness to those left behind, wondering about their kin. When Tina went in March to bring food to the Samburu, after the first attacks, cattle thefts and police occupation: the people told her that her presence –her acknowledgment that they existed and her statements that others too knew of the police atrocities afflicting them — mattered as much to them as the food we had gathered and she brought. Now, they say in the e-mails above, they fear that we will “stay far from them” if we know the inhumanity they are being subjected to.
No! I ask you, reading of these events, to speak up and tell others — to deny the message of the children’s murderers — and continue to confirm the Samburu’s humanity. It took a court order this spring to remove the police from occupying towns in the district. Now they are back, following days of gunfights and raids. Make the power of the internet give voice to the Samburu.
When a community is bomborded from left, right, centre and above we are left with nothing to do than sit and wait until we are all gone! Its despair total despair here.The borana are here, the somali are here! The governement is here and worst of all the famine I have never seen in my last 28 years of existence on this earth!
Last Saturday, 5th Sept 09, was one of the worst raid by the Borana! A friend visited the scene and took pictures of bodies riddled with gunshots that can only equal the black hawk down of the US soldiers klled in Somalia!. The only question that remain unanswered; one needs enormous resorces and logistical support to raid more than 3500 cattle that was driven away that morning! Worst still is the way this cattle disapear without trace-this must be modern raiding!
I met young boys who ran away that morning from their manyattas! Their descpription of the whole ordeal reminds one of the Sobibor massacre only that this time round the attackers didn’t have the gas chambers! One would describe how his brother was shot trying protect cattle from being driven away! The other tells how he tried to use a stone to deter a bandit with an automatic rifle! At the end of the day all is gone and the little boys were picked by their mothers after I managed to arrange accommodation for them at Archers post.
A permanent solution to this heinous act is required urgently! We are crying and asking the international community to come to our aid because the Govt we could have run to is watching while all this is happening at her doorstep!